Bittersweet
by snowleaf
Summary: Sweet is the cruel bitterness of torture.  Bitter is the undying sweetness of love. [SanadaAtobe]


**Title:** Bittersweet  
**Rating:** NC-17  
**Fandom: **Prince of Tennis  
**Pairing: **Sanada/Atobe  
**Disclaimer: **I own neither the characters nor the manga.

* * *

Atobe Keigo never quite understood how they always ended up like this.

It happened every Friday, after school. They would meet by the designated lamp next to the broken ice-rink, and pretend they didn't know the other would be there. They would nod curtly, and then Atobe would call his chauffeur and politely invite the Rikkai fukubuchou for a ride.

Sanada would never say yes, and Atobe never expected him to. But one way or another, they would find themselves locked in Atobe's room half an hour later, groaning and fucking and wrinkling the silk sheets so much that Atobe knows he will need new ones by next week.

Sometimes, Atobe would wonder between ragged breaths if this was morally right. They were both screaming someone else's name, after all. But then a shot of pleasure will rip through him and he would forget all that. It didn't matter that the whole thing was pointless and farcical. If he couldn't have what he truly longed for, then this would be the next best alternative.

Their bodies were fucking and the heat was unbearable. In Atobe's mind, however, there was not a baseball cap flung haphazardly across the antique armchair, but a pair of golden lenses glinting in the light; and the neat mop of trimmed black hair knotted through his fingers was replaced instead with a handful of windswept, auburn masses.

It was Tezuka that Atobe saw and moaned for. Not Sanada. It was fine, though, because he knew that Sanada also took him for another as well: Yukimura.

It was a way of fulfilling an otherwise impossible dream. The pain, the frustration, the animalistic lust. It was an easy source of release, to say the very least. They neither loved nor cared for the other. This was nothing more than a simple matter of procuring sexual gratification. Atobe had liked it that way. They were not lovers, they weren't even friends.

But fate had a warped sense of humour. And one day, the dream changed.

At night, the apathetic face of the Seigaku captain stopped plaguing his dreams, and instead another emotionless one filtered through and replaced it. The first night, Atobe woke up in cold sweats and found himself tangled in sticky mess; he had put a finger to his lips, and sat horrified, knowing that the name just escaped his mouth was not something he should not have moaned so deliciously.

"_Genichirou…"_

_Genichirou_… Not Tezuka. Not even Sanada. It was horrifying. No one, not even Tezuka, had ever rendered him helpless enough to cry out the first name so desperately.

"_Genichirou… Genichirou… Genichirou…_"

The dream (or rather nightmare) began to haunt him every night, each more pronounced than the last. Atobe would toss and turn, sweat beading through his flesh, and his lips would gasp out the name that should've been forbidden, ever so lusciously, ever so sinfully.

'_**Genichirou…!**__'_

Atobe bit down on his lips.

And here he was now, Friday afternoon, lying flat on his back against the silk sheets which he's never changed, clinging onto the scorching body he had grown to known so well, being thrusted into… being plunged under…

This was not making love, this was just sex. Sex in the very essence of its monosyllabic nature: blunt and jagged and to the point. Sanada grunted above him, and Atobe whimpered in reply. He wanted it to end now; but he needed this to go on forever…

That spot hit home.

'_**Genichirou!**_'

Cherry lips chapped and Atobe tasted blood on his tongue.

_**-- Sweet is the cruel bitterness of torture --**_

He mustn't cry out.

Maybe he should've stopped after that first night, when he knew that everything was different. It was never a question but a certainty. Yet, somehow, he still went to that same empty street every Friday, nodding the same courteous smile and offering the same promiscuous ride.

He couldn't help it.

'_**Genichirou!**_'

He has not noticed, Sanada that is, the absence of Tezuka's name in their weekly fucking. He has not noticed, again, Atobe's muffled moans as they become more and more swallowed up by sobs. He has not noticed, blind to the obvious, the midnight blue irises as they softened in his reflection.

A lonely tear trailed down one pale cheek.

"_Genichirou…_"

It was not loud but a whisper. But Sanada would've heard it, had he chosen to listen.

"_**Se-Seiichi…**_"

He hadn't.

The moment of release, and Sanada's mind was of nothing but Yukimura.

Atobe shut his eyes, not even bothering to wipe his face. Sanada never looked at him afterwards anyway. He was dirty, he wasn't Yukimura.

The warm weight lifted off his chest, and the sound of shuffling could be heard. Sanada was leaving, like always, like agreed. No words need to be exchanged; no comfort needs to be given. This was just sex, and only Atobe has broken the rules.

A click by the door and Atobe knew he had gone. He laid flat in the soiled sheets, and stared at the magnificently painted ceiling.

It was times like this that he wonders perhaps he should find a replacement for Sanada now. A change of fuck-buddy would be good for him; he should get someone who he can freely whisper "Genichirou" to, someone who wasn't so emotionally stunted as the one right now, and someone who wouldn't call out Yukimura's name every damn time. He should, he should…

It wasn't like there was a lack of choice. Being the Hyotei captain and an Atobe meant that there were always those willing to bask in his aura. Often too many, in fact. It would be easy to replace Sanada, easy to forget him…

Midnight blue eyes closed, and tears rolled.

It was pathetic.

Atobe's hands gripped the sheets and he snarled. A face of eternal impassiveness and glaring red cap goaded at him. Bastard, it was all Sanada's fault. It was!

If Sanada hadn't been there when Yukimura rejected him, and hadn't taunted through those bitter lips that Tezuka actually loved another - something Atobe knew fully well with or without prompting – Atobe would never have tackled him to the ground in anger and bit him hard on the mouth to shut him up. They would never have stumbled into in the cheap, dingy motel with half their clothes off ten minutes later and Atobe wouldn't have lost his virginity moaning and begging like a whore.

God, he hated Sanada Genichirou. That much was undeniable.

Anger bubbled and ebbed away as fists slowly unclenched. Atobe opened his eyes again and stared at the painting on the ceiling blankly. He stayed silent for a while.

_Sanada Genichirou…_

He laughed.

Pointless… How pointless this all was…

It didn't matter how he felt now, it didn't matter what he decided, in seven days time Atobe knew that without the shadow of a doubt he will arrive at that rusted lamppost half an hour earlier than consented and will expectantly wait for an awful red cap to show around the corner.

He had no choice.

_**-- Bitter is the undying sweetness of love --**_

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Again, the ending sucked and took forever.  
I'm really sorry for the OOC in Atobe's character, I didn't mean for him to sound so depressing but it just came out like that.  
This actually took me ages but doesn't seem like it at all. –_sigh_- I'm officially dead.

_26.07.07_


End file.
